There’s Nothing Un-American About a Wall — But It Shouldn’t Be Necessary

posted by Rush Limbaugh -
Jan 11, 2019

RUSH: I want to run by you is this wall. There are a lot of people -- let me clarify. When I say "a lot," there's some people, I mean, some that are in media in politics and then there are some people I know in my private life who just think the whole idea of a wall and the United States, those two things are just incompatible. Maybe Israel has one and maybe people have walls around their estate, their homes or whatever, but we're the United States of America. We don't wall ourselves off from anybody or anything.

And these are not people that don't think there's a problem; they do. They think there’s every bit of problem that you and I think with uncontrolled illegal immigration. They've got the politics on it correctly. They know the Democrat Party's largely behind this, largely supportive of it. Some elements of the Republican Party too. These are not people that don't want to do anything about it. They want to bring it to a screeching halt. They just think that a wall is not something that a giant superpower does.

Now, these people happen to be of a certain age that the biggest wall in their lifetimes was the Berlin Wall, and that was a wall to keep people in. When communists build walls, it's mostly to keep people from escaping. And if your formative years, your formative experiences have to do with walls being of that nature, then it's somewhat understandable that you might not be in favor of a wall on the southern border.

These people say, "We wouldn't any more think of putting a wall on the northern border. What is it? Are we admitting that we really can't stop this with ordinary border crossing?” And people say, “Damn right we can't. There's too much of it that's unprotected and can't be. We don't have the personnel.” We don't. You know what we're really missing or have been up 'til now is the political will to do anything about it. I don't want to be redundant and waste a lot of time rehashing why the Democrats don't want to stop illegals. We know full well.

The crisis here really is the Democrat Party, folks. Because to me it's totally understandable that poor, impoverished people from relatively nearby -- I mean, who in their right mind would not want to come to the United States? For whatever reason, if you look at it as a giant welfare state, who wouldn't want to come here? If you look at it as the land of opportunity, who wouldn't want to come here? Anybody in their right mind would want to come here.

There is more prosperity, there is more opportunity, there is more liberty, there's more freedom, there's more of everything that's good in this country than anywhere else in the world. It's the only place in the country where there's expectation of economic advancement, there's expectation of prosperity.

In most countries around the world -- and this is something a lot of Americans I don’t think are aware of because they've never lived anywhere else. Few have ever been anywhere else. And so it's tough to realize that for the mass of humidity, the vast majority humanity since the beginning of time, life has been spent in bondage of one kind or another. Most governments are tyrannical. Most governments are dictatorial. Most governments do not feature of and by and for the people in anything.

There isn't a guarantee of opportunity, much less economic prosperity, not even in the European socialist economies. They have kind of been whittled away now to centralized government. And economic expectations are really determined by your birth in many of these the countries. If you're born to an aristocracy, then you're gonna be an aristocrat. If you're not, you're up the creek much like the caste system in India.

So to me it's entirely reasonable that poor people, especially as close by as Mexico, would want to get into this country. That's not the crisis. It's common sense. The crisis is the American left. The crisis is the Democrat Party, and to a certain extent certain elements of the Republican Party, who look at these people as nothing more than serfs, pawns, people to help them maintain current economic status or political status. They're either cheap labor or they are guaranteed voters. They're not looked at as anything other than that.

They arrive, and the people that want 'em to come here want 'em to stay uneducated, want 'em to stay poor, want them to stay dependent. To me, every problem we've got regarding illegal immigration can be focused on the American political system and specifically the Democrat Party. The Democrat Party is openly in favor of this crisis because they have structured themselves purposefully to benefit from it.

The Democrat Party in November of 2011 made the decision to abandon the white working class voter constituency. And in casting them aside -- and this includes many blue-collar union people, too -- in casting that group of people aside the Democrat Party determined that the changing demographics of this country meant that the Democrat Party's route to perpetual power was to become the party of all minorities combined into one voting bloc.

And that's what the Democrat Party is assembling. That, and there's one other group, the uber-wealthy. The uber-wealthy and Hollywood in finance and in Silicon Valley. That's the Democrat constituent. Those are the donors. Those are the people that are culled to help the Democrats do their tech electoral stuff. But your base Democrat voter is increasingly uneducated, of lower economic circumstance with not much hope of betterment. And since they do need a permanent underclass, keep the borders open.

And then people say, “Rush, a wall? I know what Trump's saying, I really do, Rush, I know where you're coming from. It's not what America is. America doesn't do walls.” And I understand what they're saying. To these people that I'm referring to, a wall is in response with giving up. A wall means we can't protect ourselves any other way and people don't like the concept of America or Americans giving up.

Now, I'm convinced -- and I have people telling me that I'm wrong about this every time I mention it. But I'm convinced that when Trump as a candidate kept talking about the wall, I think it's always been symbolic. But the way things have evolved, it has now become real. We already have fencing in a lot of places and we have certain areas of our border where walls and slats have been built, and it is a reality, and they work. I'm not arguing that walls don't work and I don't want to... In fact, I'm not even arguing against the wall here.

Don't misunderstand me. I'm just telling you I think the real problem here -- the real focus as it is in most everything else that we find ourselves engaged in -- is liberalism. The left, communism, socialism, the Democrat Party. That's why we have a crisis here. We cannot unify around the idea that there ought to be a defend border and that there are laws determining who is and who intent eligible to become a citizen, and until people follow that route they are not gonna be let in. We can't even come to unity on that?

We've gotten to the point where the Democrat Party and certain Republican interests want there to be open borders because these people are needed for others in the Democrat Party to maintain their status, their political power, and their economic circumstances. I think a lot of people are this way and they've gotten to the point now the wall is the only thing that's gonna work since there isn't a unified objective here of defending a country and maintaining our sovereignty. I just...

It's a challenging thing because when I hear these people tell me, they almost sound pained to think that there's gonna be a gigantic wall. But then, folks, if you look around the world, there are walls everywhere. They're going up and they've been going up since the beginning of time -- and they work is the reason why they're going up. There's a gigantic wall in Syria to keep certain elements out. The Israelis had to build a wall. The Vatican has a wall.

You know the drill about how all these people are hypocrites because they use walls to defend and protect their property and themselves, but somehow the same thinking doesn't attach itself to the country at large. I think... Don't misunderstand. (chuckling) I'm not trying to talk Trump out of this. Do not misunderstand. I've gotten to the point where whatever it takes to defeat the left -- within civilized boundaries, of course. I'm not off the deep end on this. I just think they're the problem. More and more people out to be aware they're the problem.

And the more this goes on, the more it becomes abundantly clear that they are the problem. But the Drive-By Media isn't gonna endorse that by reporting it or categorizing liberal Democrats as such. They're gonna continue to mock and make fun of people who want to secure the border as they're mocking and making fun of Trump. It's an amazing thing. Trump goes out and refers to and talks about recent crime, mass murder.

Some of the despicable, unspeakable things illegal immigrant criminals are doing to people, and the Democrats and the media mock 'em and they laugh at it as though it's not serious. "He's exaggerating. It isn't this bad!" Yet let federal workers face the prospect of missing a paycheck for the first time in the history of shutdowns, and sheer panic sets in.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: No, no. Look, don't misunderstand me, folks. We would not need a wall if we enforced the law! We wouldn't need a wall if we enforced E-Verify and illegals could not get work. We wouldn't need a wall if we would simply prohibit welfare, health care, and education payments to illegals -- even children. It's $630 million, I think, in California alone. We wouldn't need a wall if we would close the loopholes in our amnesty laws and in the asylum laws, the loopholes in asylum. We wouldn't need a wall if we would prohibit free health care to every illegal who arrives here.

We wouldn't need a wall if we would prohibit free education to illegals, and we wouldn't need a wall if we would prohibit free housing. But the reason we have a crisis is that the Democrats would never agree to any of those things -- and, by the way, if we started enforcing all that, the numbers of people trying to get here illegally would be reduced by a factor of I don't know what. If there was no benefit to getting here illegally, they wouldn't try. This is on us. This is on the Democrat Party. This is on everybody benefiting from the suffering of these people and the pretending there are no laws here.